President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Friday stood firm that the Philippines is drawing the line on its waters based on international law, not from imagination.

In his keynote address at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the President said the Philippines is on the frontlines of efforts to assert in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) the integrity of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the “Constitution of the Oceans.”

“We have defined our territory and maritime zones in a manner befitting a responsible and law-abiding member of the international community. We have submitted our assertions to rigorous legal scrutiny by the world’s leading jurists,” he said.

“So, the lines that we draw on our waters are not derived from just our imagination, but from international law,” the President said.

President Marcos said the Philippines have on its side the 1982 UNCLOS and the binding 2016 Arbitral Award. He said both of these affirm “by legal right” what belongs to the Philippines.

Before delegates from the defense and security establishments of more than 40 nations around the world, President Marcos pledged the Philippines will protect its territory “to the last square millimeter.”

“In this solid footing and through our clear moral ascendancy, we find the strength to do whatever it takes to protect our sovereign home — to the last square inch, to the last square millimeter,” the President said.

He also mentioned in his keynote address that the life-giving waters of the West Philippine Sea “flow in the blood of every Filipino.”

“We cannot allow anyone to detach it from the totality of the maritime domain that renders our nation whole,” he said.

“As President, I have sworn to this solemn commitment from the very first day that I took office. I do not intend to yield. Filipinos do not yield,” the President said. PND